


On Keeping Up One's Image

by peonydee



Series: fried donuts and steamed buns [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonydee/pseuds/peonydee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein a morning after is greeted by a box of jelly donuts and a warning on a post-it note</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Keeping Up One's Image

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mikochan_noda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikochan_noda/gifts).



> Prompt by Miko-chan, masquerading as an anon ask. Tsk.

**Prompt** : _There was a box of jelly donuts ( bearing the Dupain-Cheng logo ) on the table beside his bedroom door. And to his horror, the box had a grey post-it bearing half-warning, half-exasperated words : "Eat the half-dozen of these. And the others to Miss Cheng. You need all your strength for your photo shoots, and her show tonight. Coffee will be arriving shortly. P.S. I have the most unfortunate task from Mr. Agreste : I have to tell you to keep it down,"_

 

Adrien would have thought the sentiment rib-achingly funny, if not for the mind-breaking notion that his father, severe, ascetic, seemingly asexual Gabriel Agreste, was not above making assumptions about his sex life. He ruefully glanced back at the disaster that was his room, sure that last night’s events must have been audible, even along the mansion’s long and sound-proofed hallways, even to his father, to say the least. At least, Adrien could rely on the Agreste household to be discreet, and their assumptions were well within reason—he was twenty-six, engaged to be married, and deliriously in love. He supposed he could play along and ask the staff to avoid his rooms for a few days, so he could clean up “the worst of it.” How long he could hide the shattered remains of a floor-to-ceiling window was beyond him…

Ah, but Nathalie was right about one thing.

Adrien took the box of donuts inside his room and made sure to lock the door behind him.

“Rise and shine, my lady,” he murmured to his sleeping fiancee, pressing a kiss to a bare shoulder.

Marinette has been running herself ragged the last two weeks now, preparing for tonight’s show, running on coffee and adrenalin and a creator’s mad fervor. They’ve also been hunting this particular akuma for four days now, one that seemed to only attack when its den is disturbed, and mostly staying hidden, impossible to track. They had finally cornered it in his room last night, but it managed to escape just before Ladybug could cleanse it.

“Come to think of it, that’s the first time I’ve seen a butterfly latch to multiple objects owned by a victim,” Adrien muttered. “Does that mean it’ll keep on resurrecting each time we break a bead if the butterfly isn’t cleansed immediately?”

“I want to collapse just thinking about it,” the woman beside him groaned. “Next time we’ll be sure to destroy the entire length of that necklace. Are you really eating powdered donuts in bed, Adrien?”

She turned over jerkily to frown at him in disapproval. He glanced pointedly at his gutted gaming center and the trails of tattered books that exploded from his mini library when the Hibernator hurled them at it like bowling balls last night, one after the other. She snorted and sat up gingerly.

“Any chance we’ll defeat that akuma before tonight?” he asked instead, fingering the forming splotch of red on her upper back, imagining the way it would look against the delicate straps of the dress she had planned on wearing for the event. “You won’t be able to wear my dad’s gift you, if this darkens.”

She groaned again at the reminder she had other pressing things going on that day. “I’d rather it stays asleep till after the show to be honest,” she said.

“Now, now. Don’t fret, princess.You’re in pretty good shape if you remember–”

“But I have to rehem the blue jumper and the torso of that peek-a-boo dress is completely off–”

“Mari, your staff needs their sleep, too.”

“But–”

Adrien set aside his Bavarian-filled donut to shush his girlfriend’s litany of things that could go wrong before she could even begin. Marinette kissed him back with growing enthusiasm before she moaned once more and not in the manner he might have welcomed.

“That’s one of ours, isn’t it?” she asked in a horrified voice.

Her boyfriend shrugged and offered her the box. “Why not?” he said. “They’re damn good donuts.”

“Oh, please. I don’t know what’s worse, my mom asking if her daughter isn’t making trouble at the Agreste home or Nathalie volunteering the information.”

“I never thought your parents minded. I mean, it’s not the first time you’ve stayed over. Or that I’ve stayed over at your place. Or, wait—is it because I usually come and leave as Chat that they’ve never said anything? Now I feel like I’ve been deceiving them, seducing their daughter over their very heads.”

“But we are deceiving them, kitten. Anyway, don’t. I think mom would say something if she wasn’t sure you could support me if our activities accidentally, um–”

“Bear fruit?”

“Bear fruit. But since you do have the means to support a family on your own–”

“You also have the means to support a family on your own.”

“All right then. Since we both have the means to support a family by ourselves if we have to, she wouldn’t say anything. And honestly? Ever since we started planning the wedding, I think it’s starting to sink in.”

“That we’re sexually _agrestive_ adults?”

Marinette rolled her eyes at his puny attempts to calm her. “I found her sorting out my old baby clothes once.”

“I’m sure a few adjustments here and there would make them fashionable enough for our hypothetical children.”

She swatted at him, laughing now despite herself.

“But for future reference, does it bother you that your parents know we’re being–”

“It bothers me that my parents probably think I spent the night with you instead of working on the collection overnight like I told them, even though nothing even happened last–what are you doing?”

The model had promptly stripped off his shirt and was in the process of wriggling out of his pajama bottoms.

“Why– why are you stripping, you silly—that is so unsexy the way you just balled up your jammies and–Adrien!”

He knew she was lying about the unsexy dig when she retreated under the blankets with a panicked yelp. As he stalked over her covered form on all fours, he considered his angle of initial attack–should he go for the tuff of black hair sticking out from under a pillow? Perhaps, her curled up toes peeping from the tangle of sheets.

“You’ll squish the donuts,” came her muffled warning. “The donuts my dad made with his own two hands, kitty cat, my dad, whom you respect and love for the giant teddy bear that he is. And my mom probably whipped up the strawberry filling you had just been licking off your fingers a few seconds ago. My mom! You love and respect my mom too much to defile something she made with her own two hands! And don’t you have a photo shoot in a couple of hours?”

“I just figured you’d feel better if something had actually happened,” Adrien said, sidling against her equally naked form when he finally broke through the comforter fortress. It was a pity that they had both been too exhausted to do more than set up their kwamis with cheese and cookies in Adrien’s rarely used home office, help each other to the bathroom to examine for any serious injuries, and for quick separate showers before kicking rubbish off his bed and collapsing into twin fetal positions. While he supposed he could remedy that, she was actually right about the photoshoot being too soon to risk his being tardy for makeup and hair. Not to mention, by now, Plagg would be antsy from cabin fever, even with Tikki around to keep him company.

“I hate being interrupted,” she groused. She was changing tack, he knew, half to deflect the teasing he would surely continue if she continued to show her scandalized worry, half to appease the regret which he expressed with a chaste kiss, all truth.

“I hate having to be a responsible adult, but if the illusion is making your parents look the other way about our midnight romantic rendezvous–”

“Ugh, you are incorrigible! It’s just the polite thing to do, you silly cat, to not have them even have to think about it by being discreet–”

“You don’t think we’re discreet?”

She paused, recognizing it for the serious question it was. “Oh, Adrien, yes of course. Of course I think we’re discreet all the time. And I appreciate it. Are you kidding me? Don’t you think for even a second I don’t know the pains you take to protect my privacy.”

He smiled at her ruefully. “Actually, I’d have thought you’d find it easier to excuse yourself when an akuma appears after we started dating–chock your disappearances to your prima donna boyfriend, you know? Women have it different, of course, and I forgot to even consider your culture and all. I’m sorry about that.”

She whimpered again, sounding quite helpless that he frowned, wondering what he said now that so exasperated her. But his petite sweetheart inelegantly flopped herself over him, scattering little kisses over his face and neck.

“You know, you can be a bit more _agrestive_ than that without marking me.”

“You know, if you don’t stop with that _agrestive_ pun I will develop an instinctive urge to bang my head against the nearest wall every time I hear our name mentioned.”

“Oh, but that’s a low blow, bugaboo. Our name, indeed. Way to weaken a gentleman’s resolve of not screwing his exhausted wife-to-be till she bangs her head against the nearest floor, begging for release.”

She threw him out of his bed for that impertinence.

“By the way, I was stripping in preparation for a quick shower, not a quickie.”

She blew him a raspberry, and with the comforter trailing behind her, trotted her way to his bathroom to get ready for yet another long day of cramming last minute adjustments, last dress rehearsals, and possibly an akuma fight thrown into the mix.

“Don’t forget to eat your half of the donuts,” he said as he trailed after her.

“I’ll bring it with me to the venue,” she promised. “In case Tikki needs it later.”

Adrien sauntered back to his bedside table, where upon the donut box sat precariously, prim and modest in the face of all the outrageous flirting having taken place beside it. He took Nathalie’s note for safekeeping. Ever the pious son and the dedicated lover, he decided to delay delivering his father’s request till after his Marinette’s big show. Maybe he’d even wait till after the Hibernator was defeated actually. They’d both be less achy then, and maybe, just maybe, might be able to oblige what everyone assumed newly engaged lovebirds often and indulgently engaged in when they were together and alone. 

With a mischievous grin that was probably all Chat Noir, he decided to fan the flames by picking up the tray of coffee that must be waiting outside his door, simply dressed in all the glory of his skimpy boxer briefs.

**Author's Note:**

> I have misgivings about hmm a couple of things Adrien said, or rather the way it was phrased, but hmmm...


End file.
